


snow day

by piece_of_the_stars



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Phone Calls & Telephones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 01:31:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5724445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piece_of_the_stars/pseuds/piece_of_the_stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>mulder calls scully late at night and shares a memory from his childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	snow day

the ringing of her phone breaks her from a dreamless sleep. without opening her eyes, she reaches to pick up the phone on the table beside her, wanting to make the noise to stop.

“hello?”

“one time, before she was abducted, she asked me to help her build a snowman. she never had made one before and it became her mission after the holidays that year.”

“mulder?” she cracks open an eye to take a look at the clock. 3:47 am. she doesn’t ask if he’s okay because he only calls this late when he isn't. she also doesn't ask if he wants her to come over, knowing that he’ll just tell her to get some rest and that he’ll see her tomorrow. so instead, she settles onto her back with the phone pressed to her ear, listens to him breathing and waits patiently to hear his story.

“i told her no. there wasn’t any snow that year until late january anyway and i didn’t want to be caught playing with an 8 year old, you know? what that would have done to my 6th grade reputation… but when it finally snowed, we got over a foot and school was canceled. it was like she wished for it and the world gave her what she wanted. she was completely unsurprised to wake up to that much snow and she woke me up by throwing my snow pants at me. ”

“and did you build a snowman with her?” she asks him softly. she finds herself trying to picture a younger mulder playing in the snow with the sister she has only seen in pictures. most of the childhood stories mulder has shared have been full of pain and picturing him happy is not as easy as she wished. the thought breaks her heart but mulder's voice on the other line brings her back.

“yeah. i think the excitement of missing school made me forget that i didn’t like hanging out with my kid sister. but she was so excited and the snow was perfect for snowmen construction. we made him as big as we could, rolling up snow until sam couldn’t push it around any further. i had to lift her up a bit to put his head on his body. he had a carrot noise and we used rocks from the back garden for eyes and even borrowed dad’s hat and scarf. we stayed outside for hours perfecting everything until we were as frozen as kevin.”

“kevin?”

“the snowman. samantha named him.”

“ah, i see. tell me more about kevin.” 

“well, for one thing, he was a magical snowman.”

“really.” her, sleepy relaxed expression easily slips into the skeptical look she sports whenever mulder brings up a new theory. she hopes he can picture it through the phone.

“yes. you see, kevin stuck around longer than all the other snowmen on the block. each time it snowed that winter, i would fix him up a little so when all the others had melted away, he barely lost his shape. all the animals in the neighbor never touched his carrot nose either. it also never rotted away, though i suspect that might have been my mother’s doing, changing it when it started to go bad. but samantha thought it was magic, her very own frosty the snowman.”

mulder trails off and silence fills the space around them. she doesn’t say anything, knowing that he just needed to share this moment of magic in his otherwise tragic past. she wishes there were more stories like this for him to tell, that his life wasn’t consumed by alien conspiracies instead of the happiness and love he deserves. 

she thinks about this mulder who kept their frozen friend from melting away just to make his sister happy and her heart breaks all over again for the man on the other end of the phone. she wishes that kevin could have returned to his front yard year after year and remain magical to the mulder children but she knows he didn't. kevin was a guest that never returned, much like samantha ended up being.

despite all the so called magical things they have witnessed in their work, she suspects mulder misses the magic of that day almost as much as he misses his sister. she wishes she could give him some of that magic and, for what seems like the millionth time, she wishes that samantha mulder had never been taken and never heard from again.

after a few minutes of listening to his breathing, she thinks he’s fallen back to sleep. when she resettles herself in bed, his voice filters back to her quietly.

“would you build a snowman with me, scully?”

“what? mulder, there’s no snow,” she says, silently cursing the unusually warm weather this winter.

“you never know. tomorrow we could wake up to a foot of snow and, if we’re really lucky, maybe they’ll even cancel school.”

she laughs softly and pictures him smiling on the other end of the phone.

“okay, mulder. i’ll build a snowman with you.”

“tomorrow?”

“sure, tomorrow.”

“okay. better get some rest then, scully. an old friend is ready to stop by and we can’t have you falling asleep before you get a chance to meet kevin.”

“all right.”

“goodnight scully. sleep tight.”

“goodnight mulder.”

he hangs up, the click and sound of the dial tone letting her know that he’s okay for the night. she listens a little longer, hoping he actually gets some sleep.

she puts the phone back on the bedside table and settles back into bed. she drifts back to sleep hoping for a snow day for the first time since she was a little girl.


End file.
